Experts agree that screen time should end a few hours before bedtime to ensure a good night’s rest. But whether you’re trying to curb blue light or a social media addiction for your kids, time scheduling can help technologically enforce the rules of the house.

On an ASUS router, the Parental Controls settings let you enable or disable internet access for each client based on the time of day and the day of the week. This is particularly helpful if your kid has a laptop or tablet that they keep in their rooms, away from your watchful eyes. Setting it up these controls for you or your children is easy. Here’s what you do:

In the Client List, choose a Client Name (MAC address) to restrict. If the client has connected to the network before, it’ll show up automatically in the drop-down list. Otherwise, you have to manually enter the MAC address. If the client isn’t online at the moment, click Show Offline Client List.

Click the plus sign in the Add / Delete column to add the client.

Click the pencil icon in the Time Management column.

Select the blocks of time you want to allow. Deselect the blocks of time you want to deny. In the example below, I’ve disabled internet use after 5 PM on weekdays.

Click OK.

Now, if it is outside of the enabled time block, the client will no longer have access to the internet. There won’t be any block notifications, nor will the client be disconnected. The internet will simply not work when they try to use it.

So, there you have it. Now, for parents of budding little hackers, you’re probably going to ask…

How can my kid circumvent parental controls?

Time scheduling is enforced by MAC address. Unlike an IP address, which changes often, a MAC address is a “burned-in-address” (BIA) on the network adapter. It never changes. The only way to get a new MAC address is to either get a new network adapter or use special software to spoof a MAC address.

Spoofing a MAC address on a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet, is difficult without jailbreaking or rooting. It’s somewhat easier on a Windows or macOS desktop or laptop since you can get third-party software that will do this. You can also buy a cheap travel WiFi router and connect an iPhone to that and then to your router. On some portable routers, you can change the MAC address at will.

So, it is possible to get around time scheduling on your ASUS router. However, it’s not easy. If your kid is going to these great lengths to beat the system, you can implement some defense-in-depth by using the Wireless MAC Filter setting in Accept mode. This creates a whitelist that disallows all unknown MAC addresses. I’ll show you how to set that up in another post.

Are you using time scheduling or some other method for limiting internet or screen time for your children? Let me know how it’s working out for you in the comments.

15 Comments

15 Comments

Bill

I wish that this functionality worked in all cases for all devices. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Currently, the time settings are working on the xbox one, but not on the kid’s laptop. No idea why some devices follow the direction applied in the router settings while others seem to ignore it completely. I am just going to burn all electronic devices in the house…including the computer I am tying on currently.

There are big flaws in how ASUS does this. One is MAC address spoofing, as the author points out. But, also, the ASUS router does not stop internet connections once they start. So, if I shut off the internet for a certain device at 9 PM, if connections are active at 8:59, the device continues to work past the cut off time. This is a big flaw for parents whose kids are game junkies and want to be able to go out at night without having to, say, remotely shut off all WAN access manually.

When the time comes for “No internet”, my kid’s devices stop working. Have you updated the BIOS on your router recently, we wrote an article on that. You might want to confirm you’re on the latest code.

Hello Steve. I have NAT disabled and have set up parental controls for 2 laptops, 3 iPhones and an xbox. While I have not looked into the phone or laptop situation as much, the xbox issue is annoying. I just bought the ASUS RT AC88U 10 days ago and was excited to get it up and running. The first thing I did was update firmware as I do with any new device in the house.

However, the only way my son can connect to the internet with his xbox is if I leave the parental controls for time on 24/7. Each time I try to reduce the hours to what we want him to have, it shuts him off the wifi connection completely. I have an Xbox addict who needs heavy monitoring. I am really eager to troubleshoot this and resolve it. So far, I am not sure what else to do.

Make sure you have turned off NAT acceleration. If that is on it will not drop out of connections already there. But if it is off then it does seem to drop existing connections. At least that is what I am seeing.

I have the same router. It can be a little confusing. Be sure you click on the same device where you set the Schedule up. When you click that device and the Time Management edit button, you should see the schedule.

Let me know if that makes sense. If needed, we can make a quick video for the article.

Hi Steve I am using Firmware version 3.0.0.4.380.7743. This is the latest update to the firmware but i am unable to get the parental controls and time scheduling working. My devices can still access the net when they are not supposed to. Any help will be greatly appreciated

I would agree with the assessment that any app/port which is already connected for a client device will remain working past the schedule end-point – until closed by the client device. The ASUS RT-AC3100 router at least, on current available firmware (3.0.0.4.380_7743) has this behavior.

One way to “force close” the client device connections is to force restart the router using the

This will provide a single point in time where a forced restart of the router will force close/break all of the open connections.

Unfortunately – it is quite disruptive – as it drops all clients — and then those with time/permissions will reconnect and begin working again — and those without time/permission have internet connections severed.

On my RT-AC68P, clients that are subject to time restrictions from parental controls are given a blocked notification.

The notice says:
Warning! The device can’t access the internet now.
RT-AC68P
-Detailed informations:
Description:
This device is blocked to access the internet at this time.
-Host Name (MAC)
(Client’s MAC address is shown here)

We suggest you
-If you are a manager and want to access the internet, please go to the Time Scheduling for configuration change.
-If you are a client and have any problems, please contact your manager.

I noticed that ASUS time scheduling couldn’t block whatsapp. Basically what I need is to allow my kid to use whatsapp during daytime and block it after 9pm so that she can go to bed and have a good sleep. But somehow whatsapp traffic is still coming through. I suspect the iOS somehow gives priority to whatsapp and switch over to mobile data to sync with whatsapp when it detects the internet connectivity is down.
Have you experienced this before? Any suggestion?
Alternatively, can I combine blocking of instant messengers and time scheduling together? Apparently the blocking of instant messenger works against whatsapp.

The problem still remains on ASUS RT-AC88U; I have tried many versions of firmware but haven’t found a functional one. Does anyone have a firmware version that indeed support the time scheduling?
Regards
Fredrik